07/23/2021
"sample daily devotional that Bless A Badge Ministries posts everyday in our private group for First Responder & Soldier PTSD Recovery, Su***de Prevention, and Family Strengthening. If you are a First Responder or Soldier (active, retired, reserve) please join the group! When you join, invite other first responders and soldiers!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/138145911304382
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Today's focus is on Colossians 2:10
"and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority."
One of my most favorite worship songs is "O Come To The Altar". The very first words of that song begins like this:
Are you hurting and broken within? Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin? Jesus is calling. Have you come to the end of yourself? Do you thirst for a drink from the well? Jesus is calling.
and the chorus...
O come to the altar. The Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
You may have felt this way at one time or another or you may be wrestling with these things right now. But God The Father welcomes you into His family, His inheritance because the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who has power and authority over everything has brought you into fullness and deemed you WHOLE. Whether this serves as a valuable reminder or this is something that you need to realize for the first time, your brokenness does not define you. It does not define you because if you have put your faith in Christ, your sins and your brokenness no longer belongs to you - it has been bought at the highest price by Jesus Christ. And what He does with that brokenness now that it belongs to Him is He picks up all of the shattered pieces and your Saviour has made you whole. Walk in the value you have as a new creation, made whole in Christ.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10)
Even before you were born He knew of all the brokenness in you as a result of the condition of this sinful world and the nature of sin in you. Even so, despite your inability to reconcile yourself to God for your sins, God chose to make you whole through sacrificing His Son to restore you and make you righteous in His sight (blameless before Him)... because He loves you so deeply, so completely, and so devotedly.
"Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love" (Ephesians 1:4)
And because we are human (of flesh), we are not perfect and will sin again whether in perceived smaller or bigger ways - all sin is the same severity of transgression to God. But God promises us through His Word that God, the one constant in all the universe, the one thing that never changes - that if you repent and return to Him, He will strengthen you forever.
“I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud. And your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.” (Isaiah 44:22)
"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:26)
No matter what our status and condition in life, we always have a longing for something deep inside of us. That is because God set eternity in our hearts - we always long for the satisfaction that only God can fulfill. Yet everything is made beautiful in God's perfect time and we cannot ever begin to fathom the wonders of the miracles God will do in our lives once we recognize that He has made us whole and will continue to fill us and make us whole if we walk in that faith and seek Him first above all things.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
"As for me, I will seek God, and to God I will commit my cause, He who performs wonders that cannot be fathomed and miracles that cannot be counted" (Job 5:8-9)
As we have been made whole in Christ, our response to that immense love and grace is to honor Christ as our holy Lord and abide in Him. That is, we ought to remain in the presence and awareness of our Mighty God whose love for us has no limits, no adequate words to describe the glory and depth of (though we shall try). And as we remain in Christ and pursue our sanctification, entrusting the Lord to do a good work in us, that awareness of being restored, made whole, we may revere/worship Him in a manner that bears fruit. The wholeness that we are in Christ which starts inward can then overflow out into the world and do powerful things for God's glory whether that is through testimony, teaching, or acts of love that convicts hearts or anything else God guides us to do, we become useful instruments for God's kingdom when we accept that we have been made whole.
"And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:27)
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)
"but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15)
O Come to the Altar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpy9IGkfS-U
